Half Lives
by Bawgdan
Summary: Years after Kagome has left, Inuyasha begins to dislike his stagnancy. In search to cure his loneliness, he finds a vacancy inside of an old acquaintance. (InuxShiori) ONESHOT
Shiori's eyes were puddles that men had stomped through. Where Inuyasha lacked in softness, she made up for it. Only speaking when she was spoken to and her eyes would never stay fixated in one place for too long.

"So what exactly are you running from?" She asked him as she stitched up a tear in his robe. Her bangs poured around her small brown face and curls escaped the cloth messily tied around her head.

"I'm not running from anything," He leaned against the wooden panel. Arms folded across his chest as he chewed the inside of his jaw. Intently watching her consistent coolness. _Or was it meekness?_ He couldn't quite tell.

"Then what are you searching for this time?" This time in 13 years. He sucked his teeth. Searching for a not so pathetic answer.

"You ever sit in one place for too long and notice how everything– everybody is changing? Except for you," Inuyasha waited for the slightest twitch of her brow, but Shiori remained enigmatic. She ran her fingers along the red fabric, smoothing out the creases as she pulled at the thread.

"No. Not really. I mean...maybe," Her voice babbled like a river running through stones.

"Why do you stay here?" Inuyasha floated into the warmness of her hut. The wood smelled wet like rain, but the sweetness of berries had been smashed and rubbed into the splinters.

"Because I don't know anything else."

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"What are you running from?" Shiori asked again 40 nights later as they hung from the tallest tree in the east. She held on to his hands, because the wildness that ran through his hair was terrifying. The unknown wrung her dry, and her heart leaped with the shooting stars above them.

"Boredom," Inuyasha said plainly. The memories of Kagome falling around him like the autumn leaves. His golden eyes matched the moonlight piercing the fall colors. 13 years. Sango, Miroku, Shippo, and Kagome had all left him behind. Kagome hundreds of years out of his reach and he regretted not telling her how much he truly loved her. And that she was not Kikyou. _She never really was..._

Shiori didn't believe him, but she had not been raised to speak her mind. She only knew how to shrink and hide the sparkle in her eyes. When his hold on her hand loosened, she realized he was far away. Where she could not reach out and touch him.

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 _"What was her name again?"_

 _"Kagome."_

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There was nothing more painful than not being able to fill the space Inuyasha had desperately cut into himself. He wanted it filled, but Shiori was not big enough. She was a woman with wide hips and full lips, but her mother died without properly teaching her how to fit herself inside of a man. _Or if that was what she was meant to do_.

"I want to go back," Because she was tired of running with him. She was tired of escaping feelings that had little to do with her. _Kagome. That was her name_. Was 13 years ago and those 13 years were not her burden. Shiori knew that much. She didn't how to properly sprawl herself on top of him, but she knew what incompleteness felt like.

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Inuyasha noticed that Shiori never argued back with him. Her anger was quiet. Her wrists would simply tremble and she could never look him directly in the eyes.

"Do you love me?" She would ask as if it were a brand new question each and every time. She was months, years away from her mother's grave and she could never quite believe his answer fully.

He'd close their gap with a kiss poisoned with passion. Because she knew his halfness. She completed his halfness.

 _Where even was home?_ She could not find it in him. She did not want it at the top of a waterfall.

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"Why do you stay?" Inuyasha's heartbreak looped itself around his throat once again. He hung himself by the thread of his sadness.

"Because I know nothing else," Shiori beat a fist into her chest.

Two lonely people. Trapped in a boat. In the middle of a huge lake. Two lonely people in their lonely company.

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 **A/N: This probably will only make sense to me because it came from certain place. LOL documenting my melancholy. I thought about writing it as one long story but this worked out better. Shiori and Inuyasha reuniting years later. I think they would have an interesting dynamic with them both being half demons. Anyway, leave a review if you like.**


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